


Carlsbad 2017

by mightbeanasshole



Series: Immortal Outlaws [3]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Immortals, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4236732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightbeanasshole/pseuds/mightbeanasshole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ramsey returns to Ray, 27 years later. Everything is different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carlsbad 2017

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place following "Carlsbad 1990" and "Coming Back."

> _ We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy. Every man’s condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. _
> 
> _ \-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature” (1836) _

\---

The postcard comes in April from an address Ray doesn’t recognize in Moab.

_ “Ray -- Don’t know who else to ask. Need you again. Will be through Carlsbad in July with new partner. Headed to Vegas this cycle. Can’t blame you not wanting to see my face. Know it’s bad form to come through with an empty hand out. Will wait on your reply. You can write back to this address--whether yes or no. Never stopped thinking about that week. I never stopped being sorry. --Geoff R.” _

Ray doesn’t write much by hand anymore, and it feels strange putting pen to paper.

_ “G -- That week was my fault. I’ll have what you need by July. Too bad you can’t stay a night for the bats. --RN” _

Ray seals the envelope, hunts down a stamp, and begins the long process of locking up to make a trip into town. 

\---

August, 2017.

“You’re late,” Ray says through the intercom. 

He wishes he could see what Ramsey looks like now--what his ‘partner’ looks like. But the cameras have been down for weeks and he’d been too distracted to fix them.

“Bit late,” Ramsey says, his voice tinny and foreign through the speaker. “My apology, Ray.” 

“And your partner’s with you right now?”

There’s a pause.

“Sure is,” Ramsey says.

“Partner got a name?” Ray asks, not sure why he’s pushing this--or maybe just not wanting to admit it, knowing that he wants to make it clear to Ramsey this time that even if he’s been forgiven, Ray still has reason for caution. To tell him he’s not allowed in unless Ray says so.

“Ray, any reason we can’t do this inside like friends?”

“You didn’t say anything in the letter about friends. Tell me what your partner’s name is.”

There is no pause this time. A different voice, deeper than Geoff’s but clearer, younger answers him with an edge that curves around unexpected at the end like a fishing hook.

“Michael Jones,” it says.

\---

Something isn’t fucking right with these two, Jones realizes. 

For one, Ramsey had gone electric the minute the gravely voice-turned-tinny rang through the speaker at the gates. Ramsey certainly wasn’t at ease about visiting his self-described “oldest friend.” 

The rusted, automated gates squeal to life and slowly part after the tense little exchange that felt less like two old friends saying hello and more like third-generation Hatfields and McCoys trading buckshot over some long-forgotten faux pas. They ride in slow and Ramsey’s hand has already found the flask, sucking draws off of it. 

Nervous. He’s never seen the other man nervous. What in heaven or hell could scare Ramsey?

The gates reverse and close behind them with an impotent little noise. 

The property isn’t exactly what Jones had expected either, as they rumble slowly towards an old doublewide with just as much repair as it seemed to have original structure. Striking saguaros, so green they’re almost aqua, stand like sentinels flanking the house. Great atmosphere for a meth house, maybe. But not exactly what Jones would expect from someone who manufactures what Ramsey claims is an extremely limited, boutique psychedelic--requiring the utmost skill in chemistry. 

The roof sports the distinctive slope of a structure with major foundation problems. Everything here but the cacti seems to be on its last legs. It doesn’t scream “pristine chem lab” to Jones. 

\---

Ray peers through a tinted window as they approach.

Ramsey is so young and fresh-looking that it’s sickening. 

Stubble at exactly the right length. Hair like he’s just woken up--not ridden a few hundred miles through the desert in summer. Even his tattoos are fresher since Ray’s last seen him--though he admits that this may be more to do with the new layer he’s acquired since the last time he was here. 

It’s like someone threw Ramsey into a photo editor and upped the contrast and sharpness, buffing out all the imperfections.

When they arrive at the doorstep, Ramsey holds a hand up and says something to his partner that Ray can’t hear. He’s already forgotten the kid’s name. Not that it’s important. 

The man doesn’t like whatever Ramsey has just told him, apparently, because his arms are crossed and he’s squaring up, even as he stops in his tracks. Ray watches his mouth curl soundlessly around what could only be profanity. 

The guy--Ramsey’s partner--looked like a kid at first, but up closer there’s more there. He’s tan and efficiently muscled, of an entirely average height with an entirely average genetic makeup. White guy. A few visible tattoos. Dark eyes. Brown hair that looks like it started in a military cut but hasn’t seen shears in five or six weeks. 

But there is something beyond that. Ray knows he won’t be able to put his finger on it until he meets the man, but he peers out anyway, suddenly desperate to know.

Ray realizes he can feel the man--could feel him walking up. 

Ramsey is at the door now, knocking cautiously. Ray abandons his post at the window. 

\---

“There’s been a change of plans.” 

“I’m sorry--what was the original plan?” Ray says, rolling his eyes at the other man as they sit alone in his kitchen. “I don’t believe I was ever privy to the original.”

“Headed to Vegas with him, like I said in my letter,” Ramsey says. 

“So you’re thinking something more low-key, then? Reno? Play some slots together before the big day.”

Ramsey grimaces at that and drops Ray’s eyes with disgust. Ray wonders if the bad taste Ramsey is rolling around in his mouth is because of Ray or the man himself.  

“Ray, quit fucking around,” Ramsey says. The words want to be bitter and hard but they’re weak. Ramsey is as polished as he is broken, Ray realizes with a jolt. He forces himself to take a step back and blunt his own temper.

\--- 

When Ramsey finally ventures a look back up at Ray, Ramsey’s friend--if he’s still allowed to call Ray that--is focused on some point past the back of Ramsey’s head. Thinking something through, maybe. What would Michael Jones see if given a chance to meet Ray, Ramsey wonders. 

To unsuspecting eyes, Ray looks like he could be a few years younger than Jones. Ramsey stifles a smile at the thought and twists it into a grimace. The expression doesn’t escape his old friend.

“Sorry, it’s a little hard to orient myself to whatever is going on,” Ray says. He’s no longer mounting an offense, but Ray is still coming in cold. Fine. It doesn’t matter. “Do you still need the drugs or not?”

“Yeah, I’ll still take them. What’s your price?” 

“I’m not sure yet,” Ray says. “But I’ll let you know when I do.” 

Ray produces the package from the waistband of his pants and sets it on the table. Both men stare at the rigid cardboard sleeve, the type of thing you buy to send compact disks through the mail. Pick it up and you’d think it’s empty, it’s so light.

It’s funny how all of Ray’s efforts--the distillation of thousands of years of knowledge and skill and tinkering and goddamned alchemy practically--how all of that toil produces something smaller and lighter than a postage stamp. 

But then again, it must be satisfying for him to know that something so innocuous could blow a mind so wide open that all of consciousness and nature and god and self and other-than-self could suddenly fit inside.

Ray is good. He wouldn’t have to sample his own product to know it. Once in a lifetime is enough. Even a lifetime like theirs.

There are fifty thousand calculations running through Ramsey’s head as he stares at the cardboard sleeve. 

It had been wrong to force himself back into the sphere of Ray’s life, pressing his ugly reality into the face of someone who ought to be granted the peace to forget him. Ramsey’d driven him half crazy and then abandoned him, even thought about hamstringing his friend’s unconscious body so Ray couldn’t follow when Ramsey made his escape. 

Now that they’re face to face, he’s glad he took the impotent rage out on Ray’s buggey instead. 

No, being here isn’t fair. But the stop in Carlsbad had always been the crux of the story he’d fed to Jones. 

Skip the stop at Ray’s and then what. Start telling the truth? 

Too dangerous. 

Finally Ramsey moves to retrieve the package. He mimics Ray, tucking it neatly into the waistband of his jeans. The movement breaks Ray from his own reverie.

“Do I get to meet him?” Ray asks. 

Ramsey fires him a look like a warning shot.

He’d almost thought that Ray could offer him some sort of advice--convinced himself that just talking to someone  _ who knows  _ could help him make heads or tails of the situation. But with a question like that, Ramsey knows better. 

There’s no way Ray could talk to Jones without throwing up a million red flags--not with the complicated house of cards Ramsey’s been tilting together for the kid across the better part of two months. Fucked. It’s all fucked.

“What?” Ray asks, frowning at Ramsey’s silence. “I’ve never met one of your sacrifices before.” 

Ramsey’s head swims at the word like incense in church and he swallows back bile. 

“Not gonna to be a sacrifice,” Ramsey says, dropping his eyes again. 

\--- 

_ Ah,  _ Ray thinks.  _ So there’s the change in plans.  _ Ray watches Ramsey retrieve a flask from his back pocket and uncap it. 

“There’s something wrong with him, Ray,” Ramsey says between draws off the flask. “He’s not losing it like the others. Like you.” 

Ray barks a laugh. It’d been a long time since someone put Ramsey’s curse into words but there it was. Ray is giggling, that week almost thirty years ago bubbling up in his chest in a way he’d been fighting since he got the goddamn postcard. Losing it. Yeah, that was a nice euphemism Ramsey had fashioned for himself. 

“He’s not  _ losing it? _ ” Ray asks through his laughter, eyebrows hitched. “You sure you put it in all the way, merum?” 

“It’s not a fucking joke, Narvaez,” Ramsey says, quietly. His eyes are still cast down. He’s serious. The sick laughter fizzles and dies.

“You already…” Ray begins. Ramsey nods.

“And he’s not…?” Ray continues. Ramsey nods again. 

The enormity of it dawns on Ray. Ramsey takes another drink and Ray can smell the liquor.

No, they couldn’t go to Vegas. 

“There  is something different with him,” Ray says softly. 

“You’re tellin’ me, old man,” Ramsey says.

“No, seriously,” Ray says. “I feel something off about him. I could feel it through the door. If you’ll let him come in and meet me, maybe I can tell you something.” 

Ramsey looks uncertain. 

“He doesn’t know, Ray,” he says. 

“About?”

“Any of it,” Ramsey says. “Any of us. The Brothers buzzed us on the way here--I’m going to have to tell him something and soon--”

“Back up,” Ray interrupts, his voice icy. “You saw the Brothers?”

“They’re not interested in you, Ray,” Ramsey says, waving a dismissive hand. 

“Like shit they’re not interested in me,” Ray says. “You think the kid pulling the wings off a fly is  _ interested _ in the fucking fly? I don’t want to do a damn thing to remind Haywood that I exist in the same miserable hemisphere as him and his sadistic sister.”

“Ray, I know,” Ramsey says. “We’re not staying.”

“How long ago did they see you?” Ray asks, babbling forward without even waiting for an answer. “Christ.  _ Fuck _ . I didn’t even know they were-- _ Goddamn it _ \--last I heard, the two of them were in the fucking gulags and Free and Pattillo were icing their balls in some Nordic backwater. Fuck me, Ramsey. They’re here.”   

“If they know we’re here, they know we’re here,” Ramsey says, shaking his head. “There’s nothing you can do about it now.”

“ _ Damn you, merum, _ ” Ray says in their old language. “ _ Curse your corpse. _ ”

“I know, I know,” Ramsey says. “Fuck me fifty thousand ways to the year 3,000. I got it.” 

There is a long pause. Ray sits with the reality of the situation. Ramsey traveling across the desert towards a sacrifice he can’t make with a defective man who doesn’t know what his new boss is. The Brothers in goddamn North America. Ray himself in the middle of a maelstrom he should’ve spent decades preparing for--and instead he’s here with his dick in his hands and rusty fifteen-year-old security measures.

This morning everything had been ok. The sun had risen. Ray drank tea with milk and honey and patched up a paperback copy of Plato’s  Phaedrus  with duct tape.  

And now everything is different. Everything is fucked.

Time to move forward, then.

“What are you going to tell him?” Ray asks, finally.

“I’ve been considering it for a few thousand miles,” Ramsey says. “Just about landed on the truth, I think.” 

“Geoff, you can’t.” 

“Oh no?” Ramsey asks, cocking his head.

“You’ll put us all in danger,” Ray says. 

“Come off it, Ray,” Ramsey says. “Kid’s a gun for hire with a dishonorable discharge on his permanent record. Who’s gonna to listen to him if he even believes me.” 

“You said he’s not changed,” Ray says. “Maybe you don’t know what he’s capable of. Or who has an eye on him.” 

“He’s my first shot at happiness,” Geoff says after a minute. His eyes are on the flask in his hands. “You’d take that from me?” 

“You really think a mortal could make you happy, Ramsey?” Ray asks, slinging the words at him like rocks. “You think that everyone else--you think all of us who tried--we’re just, what, we didn’t try hard enough?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“You’re madder than the last time you were here. You think it’s going to be fun to watch him grow up and grow old? That’s going to make you  _ happier _ ?” 

“I’m not going to kill him for some asshole who’s never given a fuck about me,” Geoff snarls. “I’ll find a way to make it work, I promise you that.” 

“If you don’t kill him, he’ll die at the hands of the Brothers,” Ray says. “And I’d wager they’ll make it a lot harder on him than you would. Haywood hasn’t forgiven you and the more you hitch your horse to this kid the more he’ll become a target.” 

“Can’t you let me go to hell the way I want?” 

The words come out slow, like Ramsey is chiseling them into the air. 

“What are you even here for, Ramsey? Half-lovesick, talking about a mortal like he’s got the ability to change your destiny.” 

“He already has, Ray.” 

\---

When Ramsey pushes back out onto the porch, he looks ragged around the eyes. The fuck had gone on in there? 

Michael doesn’t make a move to stand up. Not because he’s pouting, he tells himself. He’s just bone weary. 

“Where’s the score?” Michael asks. At the base of his balls he can feel something has gone wrong. 

“On my person,” Ramsey says. “It’s like I told you: ain’t the quantity in this case.” 

“So we’re out then,” Michael says. Ramsey shakes his head. 

“Ray’s invited us in for dinner,” Ramsey says. 

“And we’re accepting?” Michael says. Ramsey nods slowly, as if he can’t believe it himself.

“Didn’t sound like the two of you were exactly ready to break bread back there at the gate,” Michael says. “You telling me everything right now, boss?” 

“You gonna keep asking questions you don’t want the answer to or you gonna come inside and meet him?” 

Michael searches his eyes. Something that was dormant is raging behind them and it makes Michael’s heart beat too hard. Ramsey turns away, maybe out of frustration, and Michael is up on his feet, catching the taller man’s shoulder, rough. 

“Geoff,” he says, the man’s own first name a warning in itself, a plea. “If this man is your enemy, I need to know.” 

“Trying to decide that myself,” Ramsey says. “But he’s not after hurting either one of us, if that’s your aim. You can take a deep breath, Jones.” 

Michael gives a curt nod at that. 

Something must occur to Ramsey then, because he stops with a hand on the front door, turns to Michael. 

“Don’t you believe a word he says, Michael.” 

\---

“Sorry he made you wait outside,” Ray says in place of a hello. 

“Not your fault my boss has zero manners,” the kid says, slinging his eyes at Ramsey. 

Ray follows the kid’s gaze to his old friend. The look on Geoff’s face makes him want to throw up--like every romance the man had been denied for centuries had been boiled down until it was a thick, muddy paste--and he’d painted this mortal with it. 

No chance it’s going to turn out right--and looking at his friend is just a reminder that if Ramsey was broken at the start of this shit, he’ll be mangled beyond repair by the end. Another twisted mess in the wreckage.

He decides to just look at the kid and try to ignore Ramsey. 

“I’m Ray,” he says, holding out his hand. The kid takes it. A firm shake. 

Time slows for Ray and his mind probes the space between them, the skin-on-skin contact. The human before him has the same signature as sun-warmed earth, still radiant after dark. It does nothing to define what the difference is--but it’s there. Still firmly there. 

“I know you said your name at the gate,” Ray says. “But I’ve got a real shit memory. Tell me again?” 

“Michael Jones,” the man says. 

“Thanks,” Ray says. 

\---

Michael can’t remember the last time he was expected to make small talk with someone he wasn’t in the process of conning. And Ray doesn’t seem to be that good at it to begin with. 

“Kinda bike you ride?” the man asks him, shifting warily across the kitchen table. He wears glasses that look like they might’ve been in style 40 years ago. Just thick enough to distract you from the dark eyelashes that frame his eyes, Michael thinks. 

“It’s not really something that has a make and model anymore,” Michael says. “Little bit of this and that. Whatever keeps her running.” 

“A rat rod, then,” Ray says, nodding. Michael is surprised the man knows the term. The conversation dies between them then, and both of their eyes track to Ramsey. 

The man has his broad back to them as he cobbles together a dinner from what Ray has in his kitchen. Michael can tell by stolen glances at the stranger’s cupboard and fridge that he doesn’t do much cooking for himself. He’s got a few basics, a few ancient spices, a fridge drawer full of vegetables and some forgotten meat in the freezer. 

As he cooks, Ramsey begins to whistle low--something almost mournful, sounds like “Home on the Range” transposed into… shit, maybe A minor, Michael thinks. 

It’s hard to keep himself from joining in, whistling or tapping or humming together as they normally did when they made camp. 

A habit. Michael had fashioned himself a habit around Ramsey and it’d taken having a stranger in the room for him to realize it.

What other comfortable little ruts had Ramsey worn into him during their weeks together, Michael wonders. 

“You want any help, Ramsey?” Ray asks. 

The man just grunts. 

“You can make yourself useful once I have something to chop.” 

Ramsey knows his way around Ray’s kitchen, Michael realizes suddenly with something in his chest that feels like an abrupt drop. Every time he lays hands on a cabinet door, he takes something out. He’s not fumbling to find things--producing a cutting board from under the sink, a pair of shears from a drawer, retrieving a jar of spices from a compartment above the faucet. 

And Ray knows he knows. He doesn’t move to help Ramsey, or even bother watching the other man move around in his kitchen.

Ramsey’s cooked in this kitchen plenty. Maybe recently. 

“Here, I’ve got a job for you,” Ramsey says, turning to Ray. He’s set out a few carrots on a cutting board and produced a large knife. Ray gets up and moves a few paces to join Ramsey at the counter. 

Something happens between the two men, then, and if Michael hadn’t been waiting for it, he would’ve missed it. Ray’s eyes drag across the knife and up to Ramsey’s face. Ramsey does the same, looking from the polished edge of the knife, unable to hold back a sudden smile that is oddly cold. He cocks his head, holding the other man’s gaze for a minute. 

There’s something like embarrassment in Ramsey’s look. 

Ray sighs--the movement heaving across his back like a great burden being shrugged off. He shakes his head, lets a half-smile creep across his face. Ramsey’s expression softens.

“Quarter-inch rounds, Ray,” Ramsey instructs. 

“I can handle that,” he says. 

Their hands linger together on the grip of a knife before Ray takes it, turns away, and begins to chop. Michael watches Ramsey watch Ray. 

\---

Inviting Michael inside had come with a set of rules and stipulations from Ramsey for Ray.

Don’t ask about the future. Don’t ask about the past. Talk about the present only. If Michael asks a question, answer him truthfully. If there’s no way to answer truthfully, defer to Ramsey. 

It doesn’t leave much to talk about, other than the goddamn weather. 

Michael Jones doesn’t need to say much to be magnetic, though, Ray realizes. 

He is, in a word, keen. Eyes like an apex predator: calm and searching. Body like an athlete, easy to move and easy to rest. And in the space between them, even across the table, Ray can feel the steady hum of the man’s mind at work.

Even after just a few minutes together, Ray feels his own mind drifting--jealous now of both Jones and Ramsey. Wondering if Ramsey has taken the time yet to count every one of Jones’ freckles. Wondering if Jones would ever understand the gift that his defect has given to him that had been granted to no other--mortal or immortal--in Ramsey’s life so far. Proximity. Familiarity. Friendship. Intimacy without madness.

Does Jones realize, when he holds Ramsey in his hands, the real thing that he holds there? Rarer than rare. 

Enough, Ray tells himself firmly. This is why he lives alone, he reminds himself. This is why the closest town is miles upon miles away, why visitors aren’t invited to stay the night. 

\---

Ramsey produces something like a stew for them to eat. It resembles the freeze-dried camping food they eat most nights, but tastes worlds different to Michael. Rich, savory, flavorful--and even somehow fresh, despite the fact that all of the ingredients Ramsey started with looked on the edge of expiration. 

Ramsey and Ray split a bottle of red wine that Ray had produced moments before Ramsey plated their dinner. 

“From your last visit,” Ray had said, pressing the bottle into Ramsey’s hands. Something passes between them more than the bottle, but Michael has already lost count of these thick and meaningful moments between the two of them. 

They’ve gone from bristling like stray dogs to trading long gazes like ex-lovers and it’s not rubbing Michael the right way.

Michael takes a long draw from his ice water--a rare luxury these days--as he watches the two of them tuck into their meal. 

What are they to each other? Michael asks his question into the ether with the intensity of a prayer.

\---

Halfway through the dinner, Ray can feel Michael’s mind boring into him. 

It would be unpleasant if Ray hadn’t experienced it so many times before from so many different people, sometimes even with more intensity than Jones. And although Ramsey had strict rules for what Ray could  _ say _ to Jones, he’d never stipulated what he could think at the kid. 

_ Calm, calm, calm,  _ he thinks, willing Jones’ mind to slow and constrict back to its own boundaries. 

\---

Ray looks at Michael like he knows something about him. Michael can’t stand it. Who is this kid to act like he knows the first thing about Michael? It ignites something in Michael that he doesn’t like about himself. He can imagine pressing a sharp-edged forearm across the kid’s throat until he stops smiling. 

“You ever been to Carlsbad before?” Ray asks him as the dinner winds down. Ray shoots Ramsey a look as if for reassurance after asking the question, and Ramsey tilts his head almost imperceptibly. 

Had Ray been Ramsey’s partner on another job, then? Sometimes they act like equals, and other times Ray seems to look to Ramsey for permission. The whole thing is a tangle. 

“No,” Michael says. 

“Then you’ve never seen the bats,” Ray says, giving him that too-familiar look again. Michael shakes his head. 

“You ought to,” Ramsey says. 

Ray looks shocked as the other man pushes away from the table. 

“You and Jones go up,” Ramsey says to Ray. “I’ll clean up in here.” 

Ray presses his mouth into a line.

“You sure about that?” he asks. Ray looks tense at the idea of being alone with Michael. 

“Go ahead, Ray,” Ramsey says. 

Michael catches Ramsey’s eyes then, pushes the silent question to him: why? What is this? He gets nothing in return other than a look that seems to say “Steady, Jones.” 

\---

The sun is setting when they exit the doublewide. Michael watches Ray scramble up a drainpipe easily, hoisting himself to the flat roof. Ray doesn’t offer him a hand and Michael doesn’t need one. He pulls himself up easily, taking a seat by Ray. 

The metal roof is warm through his jeans but not unpleasant. 

“They come from the caverns, then?” Michael asks. 

Ray nods, pushes his glasses up his nose. 

“Every night, April to October,” Ray says. “My favorite sight on earth.” 

The man keeps his eyes on the horizon. He doesn’t shrink under Michael’s gaze--and it’s odd. It’s rare for Michael to meet someone his own age with that level of self-assurance. And when he does, it tends to mean the person is filthy rich or has military experience. And it is clear that the guy wasn’t rich.

“You served?” Michael asks. 

“Me? No,” Ray says. He’s lying. But Michael can respect that. He doesn’t talk about his own service either. 

“Why do you ask?” Ray asks after a minute, finally turning to look at Michael. 

“You don’t hold yourself like someone our age,” Michael says. He’s got no reason to make up a lie. “Usually you see that in military guys.” 

Ray grunts and chews the inside of his cheek. 

“There,” he says, holding a hand up. “You see them?”

A few bats have broken the horizon, tumbling and swooping. Their numbers grow and crescendo until there is a living, churning storm cloud above them. 

\---

For the first time, Ray feels Jones’ mind go flat. Off the defensive. A bloodhound at rest. His consciousness spreads out, soft and pleasurable between them like velvet. 

“Incredible,” Jones says, watching the bats. 

The kid sprawls back then, eyes and mind open wide as he lays down on the roof, his field of vision unfettered. Bats and indigo sky and more bats. 

Ray pushes in, feeling guilty almost to take advantage of this sudden childlike bent in the man, this lapse in steady thought and force of will. It takes nothing to gain access to the corridors of Michael Jones’ mind now. And though Ray can only get impressions, take measures, he’s shocked by what he finds there in the unprotected recesses. Michael  _ feels  _ like an immortal on the inside and yet--no, the path of his life has a palpable beginning and end. He is a mortal indeed and death waits for him with an abrupt close. 

But past that, inside of Michael he can feel scorching light, impossible force, true aim. 

Whatever Jones has is a gift. Not a defect. 

His connection to Michael’s mind shuts closed with a crisp, hard snap and it takes everything Ray has not to cry out. He’d let himself wade too deep into the man’s open consciousness, and now he does feel guilty. The tear in their semi-shared consciousness is like a slap across the face. A deserved slap. 

Jones has sat up like a shot. 

“You alright?” Ray asks, wary of the answer. Could Jones possibly be gifted enough to  _ feel  _ what Ray had been doing? Mortals weren’t supposed to just be given things like that--but if he’s been immune to Ramsey’s curse, perhaps all bets are off.

“Just occurred to me that lying back with my mouth open might not be the best idea I’ve ever had,” Jones says. “Seems like a recipe for a mouth full of bat shit.” 

Ray laughs hard at that, relieved and amused all at once.  

\---

Seeing the bats, Ray’s self-proclaimed favorite sight on earth, has exerted a new force on Michael. It’s as if he’s learned something new about the stranger, now that he’s seen the mass of fluttering life come together and break above their heads. 

“You sure you won’t have a drink with us?” Ray asks, after the bats have gone. 

“I appreciate it,” Michael says. “I don’t drink.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Ray says, laughing a little and shaking his head. Michael is struck by deja vu. 

“What?” 

“The gods sure do have a funny sense of humor,” Ray says. 

The moment jumps into sharp relief for Michael. It’s as if he travels time, then, to the first night he spent with Ramsey, sitting in that swamp next to the cooking fire, looking at Ramsey shake his head and take a deep draw from his flask. Ramsey had said the exact same goddamn words to Michael that night when he’d politely refused a drink.

“You two have a funny friendship,” Michael says. Ray hitches an eyebrow and Michael realizes he’s made a mental jump that leaves Ray behind. “You and Ramsey, I mean. I was just thinking about how alike the two of you are.” 

Something jumps past Ray’s eyes. Panic? Confirmation? Embarrassment? It’s inscrutable. But after a minute, Ray is giving him that too-familiar look.  

“Ramsey could drink me under a table,” Ray says with a soft laugh.

“I don’t mean how much you two drink,” Michael says. “I don’t know what it is. Just a feeling, I guess.” 

“We’ve both got talents. Practice doing things,” Ray says. “I’ve known Ramsey a long time. Maybe we’re not so different.” 

“So how is it that one of you ends up planted permanently here in the desert and the other one can’t seem to stay off the back of a motorcycle for longer than a few heartbeats?” The question surprises Michael, but he’s already said it. There’s no backtracking. 

“I can’t commit to people and he can’t commit to a place,” Ray says quickly, softly. 

“Does that go the other way, then?” Michael asks.

“How do you mean?” 

“You  _ can  _ commit to a place, and Ramsey  _ can  _ commit to people?” 

Ray chews a thought for a minute. 

“Geoff Ramsey can dedicate himself to a person worlds deeper than I’ll ever be able to commit to my shitty compound in Carlsbad,” Ray says. Michael tries to search his face in the dying light but Ray’s expression gives away nothing. This is not what Michael expected to hear. Is the Ramsey Ray knows the same Ramsey Michael knows? 

“I don’t think I’ll ever love a thing or a person with anything even approaching the depth of passion Ramsey has for the people he loves,” Ray says.

The desert is silent, the sky moving above as an endless black disk.  

Something enormous and invisible is moving inside of Michael.

And as if their conversation has invoked a ghost, Ramsey’s voice drifts up from inside the doublewide.

_ “ Wading in the water, wading in the water, children.”  _  It’s deep and melodic and it resonates.

_ “ Wading in the water. God’s gonna trouble the water.”  _

A smile tugs at Ray’s mouth.

“Never heard him sing before,” the man says. 

“Really?” Michael asks. “He sings all the time, whether he’s setting up camp or turning a wrench.” 

“You must bring out the best in him, then,” Ray says. 

Without another word or goodbye, Ray slides and scurries down the drainpipe, landing on the dusty earth. 

\---

“Where’s Jones?” 

“Left him on the roof,” Ray says. “He seemed introspective. Didn’t want to intrude.” 

Ramsey nods, drying his hands on a dish rag. 

“He gets that way,” Ramsey says. “Meditates.” 

“I wanted to have something to tell you, Ramsey,” Ray says. “He’s special. But you already knew that. Wish to hell I knew why or who decided to give him whatever he has.” 

“Don’t think I want to know, truly,” Ramsey says. “I want him to stay and I’ll figure out how.” 

“If  _ he  _ stays,  _ you  _ go.” 

“Want him to stay with me,” Ramsey says. “Should’ve specified.” 

“Think you’ll find some cosmic loophole, out here in the desert?” 

“I’m staking my life on it,” Ramsey says. 

The wine bottle is empty now and while they were outside, Ramsey has found a bottle of long-forgotten liquor under Ray’s sink. He’s drinking hard now, and as usual the alcohol doesn’t seem to touch him. 

“I’m sorry I brought him here, Ray,” Ramsey says.

“Don’t be.”

“I thought you could help,” Ramsey says, shaking his head. “What right do I have to be here. Just because you’ve been around longer doesn’t mean you got the damn answers. But who else am I supposed to ask? My cunt father?” 

Ray puffs a laugh at that. To call their relationships with their fathers disastrous would be an understatement. And yet the mention of them has Ray’s mind pushing in a different direction, away from dirt and sweat and earth and liquor.

“The Four Corners,” Ray says. “Ask there.” 

“You think?” 

Ray nods slowly.

“You can’t go with an empty hand out to them, but… At least you’ll have a place to start.” 

Ramsey thinks that over. Finishes his drink. 

“Better to start with someone who hates us all the same,” Ramsey says, finally. “It’s a good idea.” 

“I tend to have one or two of those every few centuries,” Ray says. “Do me a favor and mark it down in your diary.”

\---

Something has gone soft in Narvaez after meeting Jones and it soothes Ramsey like a balm on burned skin. 

Maybe Ray didn’t keep track of time, but Ramsey spent the last 27 years asking himself over and over again what weakness inside of him had driven him to Ray’s door that day.

It will always be a mistake and a week Ramsey will regret. It’s seductive to spend time with Ray--to speak to someone who understands what they are, the things they face. Maybe it was the 60 years he’d spent alone before he’d arrived on Ray’s doorstep that had driven him there. Maybe it was madness built up and spilling over, madness that needed to be heaped on someone else for a moment. 

“It does me good to see you, Ray,” Ramsey says to him, alone there in the kitchen. “We’ll get away far and fast. I can’t see the Brothers wasting time paying you a visit when I’m the one they want.” 

“Ramsey,” Ray says, pausing, thinking. “If you stayed. Would it happen again? I mean, me--”

“It would,” he says. “Time’s never fixed it.” 

Ray puts his hands around Ramsey’s where they cup a glass on the table. Ramsey lets him. Ray is peering into his mind and he knows it.

“You’ve got a good heart,” Ray says at last, taking his hands back. 

“None of us do,” Ramsey says. “Live long enough and nobody does, old man.”

“A better heart than the rest of us, merum.”

“Never did care for that nickname,” Ramsey says. 

Ray shrugs.

“We didn’t choose what we are,” Ray says. 

“Did Jones choose whatever he is, you think?” 

“Don’t know,” Ray says. “Figure I’d have to know what he is to know that.” 

“We camping here or not, boss?” 

The voice comes from the doorway. Neither of them had heard Michael come in, damn him. It’s too easy to let his guard down around Narvaez.

“No,” Ramsey says, his voice betraying him more than he’d like. “We need to get on.” 

\---

It’s rare for them to get on their bikes at night, but it seems like their normal schedule had gone to shit ever since the nameless gang had buzzed them on the road to Carlsbad.

Michael stares at the silhouette of Ramsey on his bike in the lead, the world awash in black and white as they mount the highway. 

Michael had only heard half the conversation there in the kitchen before interrupting them, Ray talking too low to be heard--other than a few choice sentences. Michael was miles past ready for them to stop talking the minute he heard Ramsey’s voice take shape around his name. 

They close the gap between Ray’s compound and a motel off of 62 the man had told them about, the roar of their bikes the only noise in the desert night. 

\---

Something heavy and hard is setting up in Michael’s guts as he listens to Ramsey take his turn in the shower. He’s humming something. Michael tries not to pick it out.

It feels wrong that a simple drug score had spiraled out like that. Staying for dinner. Watching fucking bats with some kid who seemed to know a man entirely different than the one that had shown up out of nowhere, materializing out of thin air and pushing money at Michael with those tattooed hands, ripping his world in half and putting it back together so that it seemed to fit Michael better, swelling Michael up with loyalty before finding his way into Michael’s bed.

Men like the Ramsey Michael knows don’t have old friends who ask you to stay for dinner. Don’t have twenty-somethings who hold your hand and tell you that you have a good heart. 

Ramsey is singing softly now and it echoes out of the open door. 

_ “ Keep so busy workin’ for the kingdom, ain’t got time to die. ” _

The thoughts, the doubts are dragging Michael forwards and back in time, stretching him in impossible directions. In another life, maybe, the unnatural calm and ease he’d started to feel around Ray would’ve been welcome. Maybe he’d have called the man his friend.

But not today, not this lifetime. 

_ “ Glory and honor, glory and honor, _ _”_ Ramsey is singing. _“_ _ Ain’t got time to die. ” _

\--- 

By the time Ramsey is cleaned off, by the time he’s completed his record of the day in his log, by the time he goes to seek Michael and open himself up to the man in that way that was becoming more and more familiar but still took thought and planning and a conscious effort--when he is ready to speak to Michael and resume everything they had when the day had started that morning, all Ramsey finds is a small, strong body tucked away from him between starched motel sheets. 

Ramsey fits his body up behind Jones’ in the narrow bed. The man isn’t asleep, but he doesn’t acknowledge the touch. He runs a hand through Michael’s hair--just barely still damp from the shower--because if Michael won’t speak to him now, at least he can enjoy this closeness. He can memorize this moment. 

“I looked up your nickname, you know,” Michael says. He doesn’t turn to face Ramsey. “Merum.” 

Ramsey puffs a soft laugh through his nose. The old name sounds awkward on lips that were more accustomed to calling him boss, Ramsey, Geoff. 

“And?” Ramsey asks. 

“Latin for undiluted wine,” Michael says. “That some joke about how much you drink?” 

“In a way, I guess,” Ramsey says. “Think it started because I drive everyone around me half fuckin mad though.” 

“Why did the man in Georgia know it? Or that woman in Louisiana?” Michael’s voice goes deeper, gruff. Hurt or angry, it might not matter. “Why’s some kid in Carlsbad call you the same thing as strangers on a highway?”

“I’ve been around plenty.” 

Michael turns in bed then, allows Ramsey to lay an arm across his waist. 

“You lie to me too much, Geoff.”  

“Holdin’ back a bit ain’t lying.” 

“You’re too smart to think I buy that,” Michael says. 

\---

Ray stays on his porch long after the two figures are out of his sight and the thrum of their bikes has echoed off into nothing. 

The Brothers would come soon. 

Ramsey drags trouble behind him like a wake in the water everywhere he goes. Ray had always taken it for granted that he was a vessel in that water, same as Ramsey. But this time, as the man pulls away from Ray’s compound--a man becoming whole for the first time, if only to be broken worse than before--this time Ray isn’t sure he can hold himself up as the man’s equal anymore. 

Bravery and madness in proportionate amounts.

It feels like the beginning of the end of everything they’ve had. Them and everyone like them.

Envy squeezes like a fist around Ray’s heart.


End file.
